About the
ConferenceAchievement gaps
are differences in academic performance between
groups of students, based on characteristics
such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status,
gender, and age. At all level of
schooling, educators are concerned with how to
reduce the gaps between groups.

Although there are multiple reasons for
achievement gaps, the conference will focus on
the causes, consequences, and possible solutions
for students' academic underperformance due tostereotype
threat.As
hundreds of studies have documented, individuals
tend to underperform in situations where they
fear that they may confirm a negative stereotype
of a group to which they belong.
In the classroom, stereotype threat can be
triggered by comments or circumstances that
remind a student of a negative stereotype about
a group to which she or he belongs.

Some examples of stereotype threat:

Asked to indicate their gender
at the beginning of a math test,
female college students do more
poorly than females who are not
asked to indicate their gender.

High-achieving white male
college students do more poorly
on a math test if they are told
the test is used to determine
why Asian students are superior
in mathematics.

Told that a test measures
language ability, college
students from a lower-class
background perform more poorly
than upper-class students.

Older adults who read a
newspaper account of how aging
impairs memory did more poorly
on a memory test than those who
had not read the story.

The conference
features guest speaker Dr. Valerie
Purdie-Vaughns who studies the causes,
consequences, and solutions to the negative
effects of stereotype threat. Dr.
Purdie-Vaughns' keynote address will explore how
stereotype threat works, what conditions trigger
stereotype threat and what types of
interventions can reduce student
underperformance due to stereotype threat.

Following the keynote address, Dr.
Purdie-Vaughns will lead a working session to
answer questions and focus on specific
strategies university faculty and staff can
adopt to better understand and reduce
achievement gaps caused by stereotype threat.

Keynote AddressStereotype Threat and the Psychology of
Achievement Gaps: Causes and Solutions to
Student UnderperformanceValerie Purdie-Vaughns,
Columbia University

This address uses the psychologist’s toolbox to
understand why certain schools and workplaces
cause students to underperform relative to their
potential and what interventions combat
underperformance. Environments like work or
school can trigger stereotype threat for
students from under-represented groups – an
added stress from the possibility of being seen
through the lens of negative stereotypes, rather
than being accepted equally as individuals. The
cumulative toll of contending with such a
threat, repeatedly and over long periods of
time, can threaten students’ sense that they can
meet the demands of the environment. Performance
and health can suffer as a consequence. This
framework helps to explain intergroup
disparities across a wide range of outcomes,
including education (e.g., gender and racial
achievement gaps) and health (e.g., racial
health disparities) that have tended to be
studied in isolation. This framework also
provides concrete strategies for psychological
interventions that target stress associated with
stereotypes and bias. When well-timed and
supported by environmental structures, these
strategies help buffer students against the
cumulative costs of stereotype threat.

Biographical Information:Valerie
Purdie-Vaughns is Assistant Professor of Psychology at
Columbia University. Previously she served on
the faculty at Yale University. She graduated
from Columbia University in 1993 and completed
her doctorate at Stanford University in 2004 as
a student of Dr. Claude Steele. Dr.
Purdie-Vaughns is an expert on racial and gender
achievement gaps in academic and workplace settings and how
stigma undermines intellectual performance. She
also conducts research on other forms of stigma
including: stigma and LGBTQ groups, stigma of
mental illness, and stigma based on multiple
identities (intersectionality). Valerie has
authored numerous publications that have
appeared in journals such as
Science,
Psychological Science, and
the
Journal of Personality & Social Psychology.
She has been awarded grants from the
National Science Foundation, W.T. Grant
Foundation and the Department of Education. She is
also a regular guest on National Public Radio
(NPR) as a psychology consultant on The
Takeaway. As a true believer in the
power of psychology to effect social change she
regularly consults with universities,
corporations and federal agencies about how
diversity works “on the ground.”